In a bid to become the reining leader among states in the category of Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers on the Right, Arizona contributes the following:
Rep. Judy Burges [R=Skull Valley] amended Senate Bill 1024 to include a requirement that Arizona’s Secretary of State inspect a presidential candidate’s birth certificate before that candidate could qualify for the ballot.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett…expressed concern about Burges’ amendment, saying that creating state-level eligibility requirements to run for federal office could violate the U.S. Constitution. “While everyone has an interest in ensuring that only eligible citizens run for president, there are obvious issues with states implementing what could become a patchwork of different tests for a presidential candidate to prove his/her citizenship,” said Bennett’s spokesman, Matthew Benson, in an e-mail. –AZVentral.com
Seems like the inmates have seized control of the desert asylum. This is right on the heels of crafting a bill (still awaiting the Governor’s signature or veto) which basically renders Arizona into a police state:
It would make not having immigration documents a new state misdemeanor, and allow officers to arrest anyone who could not immediately prove they were here legally. That means if you are brown-skinned and leave home without a wallet, you are in trouble….The bill would require police officers who have “reasonable suspicion” about someone’s immigration status to demand to see documents. And it would empower anyone to sue any state agency or official or any county, city or town that he or she believes is not fully enforcing immigration law. – NYTimes
Vintage wingnuttery! It’s what happens when paranoia, bigotry, and hare-brained ideology combine to drive the power train right down the throats of citizens forced to knuckle under. Not even local law enforcement authorities are happy with this gourmet brew of bozoic fascism, let alone the civil libertarians, who correctly point out that we fought a war over issues like these, and Federal authority trumps any state’s.
A few months ago, Arizona literally seized money contributed privately to the state’s Parks Donation Fund and used it to help close its budget deficit. Bruce Hopkins, an attorney and author on nonprofit governance and law, expressed outrage:
“It sounds like thievery to me,” he said. “On the face of it, it strikes me as being kind of scary, it’s not the state’s money so how they can take it, irrespective of whether they reappropriated it, is beyond me…. The state is obviously not real concerned about donor intent because they just took it. A charity itself couldn’t do this….[the donor’s] intent was the money be used to further the parks and for the state to come along and take the money to reduce the deficit is something that I just can’t understand…. It sounds like they just stole the money, ignored the charitable gift and obviously ignored the donor’s intent and just didn’t care.” —AllBusiness.com
What you see here is that for all their vapid talk about leftwingers expanding government, abusing power, ignoring the will of the majority, and launching a socialist agenda on America, the sacrosanct right, given the opportunity, plays the very game it decries. These three items, one right after the other, reveal profound ignorance of legal process, contempt for the governed, and callous abuse of authority
How come those highly educated anti-government Teabaggers aren’t all over this?
Obalesque 
As usual, you kiss the greater point, which is that when people feel like the authorities are not responsive, they take matters into their own hands. The Federal government has failed to protect Arizona citizens from the danger and expense created by an overflow of illegal immigrants, so the state government of Arizona has stepped up to the job. If I lived out there and what is happening was happening to me, be certain I’d do the same thing.
I guess you mean “miss” the greater point, RWB, but no matter what, it’s you and the people that like this law and this approach who don’t get it. First of all, it’s pure racism, aimed by the majority Anglo power structure at Latinos, specifically Mexicans. Plain and simple. Second, it’s just like the bad old days of states rights, where idiots in state houses who can’t read their own nation’s constitution create patently illegal ordinances, and excuse their conduct because “Washington doesn’t listen to us or answer our needs.” There are legal and illegal ways to remedy that genuine problem. Bodies of government, of all peoploe,.shouldn’t take the illegal approach.
Remember all the Nazis on the trains in those black and white movies, “Papers please?”
Welcome to Arizona where their brains seem to be deserts too.
It’s really getting bizarre out there. John McCain, running for election, told reporters that illegal Mexicans are driving around deliberately causing traffic accidents. He also said he never thought of himself as a “maverick.” Maybe space aleins DID land out there?
Birthers in the House of Representatives. That says it all.
Arizona can pass race base laws, pass Birthers laws and the state can continue to boycott Martin Luther King Day, well the rest of the Country can boycott the state of Arizona and spank them where it hurts them the most their pocket book. Their phony patriotism is sickening, they are just racists going by another name. We all know you are just itching to put a sheet on their head? Let’s face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. It appears that the Republican Party is only good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat War profiteering contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. The Republicans party will continue turned inward to their old fashion obstructionist party (and their Confederacy appreciation roots) because they continue to allow a small portions (but very loud portion) of their party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to rule their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that perform abortions). The Birthers and the Tea party crowd think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. The world is complicated and people like Hamilton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt believed that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now it’s about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. For a party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, it is tragic that the ranks are filled with too many empty suits and the crazy Birthers who have not learned that the way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked internet lies, then, and only then, do you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called “facts”. Let’s face it no one will take the Birthers seriously until they win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. I heard that Orly Taitz now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC), she wants to re-establish a family values party, that’s like saying that the Catholic Church cares about the welling being of children in their care, too late for that.
Ummm… Niagra Falls?
What happens when they stop a Native American on the street and he can’t show proof of citizenship or legal immigration status because he’s neither? This thing is bass-ackwards.
This is a very bad law and will be revealed as such as it is challenged and works its way through the system, but not before it creates a lot of havoc and tragedy. It already has, and we haven’t even started. I would find it deliciously amusing if it weren’t so mean-spirited and downright dangerous.
wow cool story man.